


Achilles Come Down

by Good0mens



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alcoholic Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman Friendship, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Needs Therapy, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Whump, Depressed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Exiled Booker | Sebastien le Livre, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M, Mortal Andy | Andromache of Scythia, POV Booker, Post-Movie: The Old Guard (2020), Pre-Canon, Soft Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Whump, booker centric, possible Book of Nile? idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:27:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26710663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good0mens/pseuds/Good0mens
Summary: "Today of all days, seeHow the most dangerous thing is to loveHow you will heal and you’ll rise aboveCrowned by an overture bold and beyondAh, it’s more courageous to overcome."5 times the team tried to save Booker, and 1 time he saved himself.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 18
Kudos: 168





	Achilles Come Down

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! This is super new for me, writing about something other than Joe and Nicky, so bear with me.  
> The 'intrusive thoughts' Booker has here are actually names of Goya's 82 prints in 'The Disasters of War,' which depict the awful shit that went on in the Napoleonic Wars, which I thought was super applicable for our dear old Booker. 
> 
> Warnings for mortal Andy (who passes away), alcohol abuse, and suicide idealisation.

**1**

Sebastien fucking hates the cold.

The sky is black like oil and everything is shrouded in devastation; the snow is crimson ash from the fire and the bloodshed. He is not a fighter, he’s a forger, a fake, a phony. They catch him before he can run far enough.

_(What Courage!)_

His last thought before they string him up to die is _Please God, let me see my sons just one more time._ He hangs along with the other deserters and prisoners, just one man in a line of executions.

_(I saw this)_

When he doesn’t stay dead, he’s unsure if it feels like forgiveness or a cruel joke. He’s gasping, breath clouding in the air in front of him, struggling against the noose curled around his throat. He can’t make any noise, or they’ll find out he’s alive. He’s unsure what they’d do to him if they figure out that he cannot die.

_(It serves you right)_

He hangs there, in the snow, for maybe three days before the army moves on. Desperation clings to him like the stench of death. Maybe that’s what makes him grab for the black crow, the warm shivering bird so small in his large hands, its heart beating wildly, wings flapping as he tears into its flesh.

_(Gloomy presentiments of what must come to pass)_

He dies like that a handful of times before he can manage to cut himself down. Then he dies of frostbite; the cold takes and takes and takes from him until he has no choice but to succumb to the numbness and sleep. But it’s no great reprieve, for between sleeping and dying – he cannot tell the difference most times – he’s haunted by images of impossible beings, and then his lungs are filling with seawater and he wakes up spluttering, his clothes wet and _so fucking cold._

_(Will she live again?)_

He’s shaking so violently that he can’t find enough grip to hold on to anything. He feels like he swallowed the crow whole, and it’s trapped in his gut, beating against his bones to be free. He trudges through the snow aimlessly, boots sinking into the ground, each step more difficult than the last.

_(The way is hard/And it can’t be helped)_

That’s how she finds him, the woman from his dreams. A pathetic heap of limbs, shivering in the cold, dying and waking in an endless cycle of misery, tumbling through darkness and begging to stay there. She looks upon him like he’s a ruin, a shell to hold something greater. He tries to tell her that there is nothing inside of him, but his mouth is too dry to form words.

_(What good is a cup?)_

All the same, she takes his hand and pulls him from the snow, from the cold, from the isolation, and brings him into the fold. She gives him purpose, puts a weight on his shoulders that for once doesn’t feel heavy enough to bring him to his knees, perhaps because she’s there to help carry it. In return, he gives her his loyalty and his forger’s fingers, and hopes that it can be enough.

* * *

**2**

Jean-Pierre, the youngest of his three boys, is 42 when he dies. It’s painful and slow for both of them. Sebastien – _Booker_ , as Joseph has taken to calling him lately – would give anything to go back to that line-up of bodies and take back his first dying request. He wishes he’d stayed dead, like he should have, rather than watch the last of his lineage, of his beautiful children, of his last connection to his old life, die like this.

_(This is bad)_

When he accuses Booker of hiding some miracle from him, he’s so shocked at the accusation it’s all he can do to stare at his boy and not collapse into himself. How can he not know? How can he not realise that Booker would give up this immortal life in a heartbeat if it meant his son could live? He would trade places without a second thought, without regret, without looking back once.

_(This is worse)_

The night that his son breathes his last sigh into the world, Booker refuses to allow the nurse to take his body away until the following morning. Some cloying, selfish, horrible part of Booker hopes with a fierce desperation that Jean-Pierre will gasp back to life and then maybe he won’t be so alone. This is a new kind of death; the murder of fatherhood. What word is there for a parent who loses their children? 

_(That is the worst of it)_

It’s Joseph that comes to him, that time. He sits across from Booker, on the other side of the cot and takes his hand where it rests against his son’s chest, unmoving, so terribly still and cold. He fucking hates the cold.

_(There isn’t time now)_

Booker allows himself to be dragged away by Joseph’s gentle tugs as Jean-Pierre is led out on his cot by the nurses. Joseph takes him to a tavern and lets him drink too much, far more than Andrea or Nicholas would ever allow, and his hand never stops touching him, either settling on his shoulder or his back or his forearm. _I’m here_ , it says, _and_ _so are you. It will be okay._ He asks Booker tell him about his children, and Booker finds himself smiling despite himself as he tells the story of Jean-Pierre falling into the river because he was afraid of the geese. It hurts to breathe, though, and eventually the laughter heaves its way into sobs, Booker leaning his forehead on Joseph's shoulder, clutching his arm like a lost child. 

_(They do not know the way)_

Booker’s grief feels entirely too big for his body. It seeps into everything he lays his fingers upon, like Midas’s touch made to destroy anything he dares to try and hold onto. He sleeps that night, pitifully curled in on himself, after refusing Joseph’s offer of the warmth of his and Nicholas’s bed. He knows they only want to help, to offer comfort, but to Booker it feels entirely too kind, sharp and painful in a way that doesn’t make sense but aches all the same.

_(There is no one to help)_

The sorrow digs itself into his chest, it digs and digs and digs until it takes root somewhere deep inside and then its blooming up into his lungs, pressing against his sternum, reaching up into his throat. He can’t breathe, he can’t rationalise past the drumming heartbeat of _alone, alone, alone-_

He begged God not to let him die so he could see his children, and he thinks the fucker must be laughing at him now. 

_(One cannot look at this)_

* * *

**3**

He stops telling them about the nightmares after it becomes clear they aren’t useful in helping find Quynh. He cannot stand looking at their faces, agonised and drawn tight, when he gasps awake after sinking too deep in the black water. So he learns to choke down his fear, control his reaction to a small twitch when he awakens, too contained for anyone to notice.

_(Bury them and keep quiet)_

When it becomes too much, he discovers exactly how little sleep he needs before he’s a liability to the team. He also realises that if he dies of alcohol poisoning, his brain isn’t coherent enough to remember the dreams by the time he’s dragged back into wakefulness.

You see, he has all this love and nowhere to safely put it. You see, he has now been childless longer than he was a father. You see, he is a protector too shattered to make an effective shield.

Andy, Joe and Nicky are his family – but they are far older than he is; they don’t _need_ him. What is he good for anyway, apart from forging his way in and out of death and bringing misery with him into every room?

_(They do not arrive in time)_

His grief burns, the alcohol burns, his eyes burn and it’s all he can do not to let it swallow him whole. He stares out at the distant city from the roof of their safehouse, tries not to feel hopeless at the way the light pollution hides the stars from view.

It’s been exactly 200 years since he died in the cold, all alone. He’s been miserable these last few days, more whiskey than coffee in his mug at breakfast, more bite than humour in his sarcasm when he sees Nicky and Joe tangled together on the couch and remarks, _do you two ever stop?_

It’s Nicky that follows him up on the roof.

He wants Nicky to yell, to beat him up, to throw him of the building. He craves a violence he hasn’t known since the Napoleonic wars. Limbs and bodies separated, impaled on trees, organs strung out and severed heads-

_(May the rope break!)_

“If I lost Joe, I would lose myself,” Nicky whispers, entirely too sincere for Booker’s fragile heart.

Booker wants to scream at the unfairness. How come they get to be happy? Why, when Andy lost Quynh, when Booker lost his sons, when everyone loses faith, do they get to keep each other? 

But the thought is gone before it can even take hold in his mind. He knows their love comes at a cost, one that they pay whenever they witness each other die. If it were Booker, it would be too high a price for him to give. 

_(Rightly or wrongly)_

Booker wants to tell Nicky that his grace is wasted on him, that he isn’t even worth the stain he would leave, emptying out below them.

“No, you wouldn’t” he mutters instead, and he means it; Nicky, of all of them, would be the one to drag himself out of despair and find purpose again.

Nicky’s mouth quirks slightly. “Wanna bet?”

It’s a horrible, terrible thing to joke about, and the absurdity of gambling his brother’s happiness causes him to laugh into a breathless mess, until he’s struggling to breathe in the best way.

Nicky snorts when Booker drops the whiskey and it makes an almighty smash where it shatters to pieces onto the ground.

In another life, he thinks, he is a boy with scraped knees and too many scars on his forearms. He isn’t lonely, or frozen in his fear to love. Where can he pull strength from, he wonders? He imagines his hands plunging into the depths of his body, blood clots burying themselves under his fingernails, trying to grasp at something he can hold onto.

_(This is the true way)_

* * *

**4**

Booker stands alone among the tragedy that is his sordid life. His family have left along with all his hope, and he doesn’t blame them for a moment. Booker wishes he could just leave himself too. He closes his tired eyes, savouring the drip of espresso on his tongue. It is no small feat to resist reaching for his flask. Calloused fingers rub themselves together, in a phantom motion, like he’s twisting off a bottle cap. He doesn’t want to be this anymore; he longs to be more than a vessel for anguish and whiskey.

But at least the alcohol kept him warm. See, he died over 200 years ago, and it feels like the cold seeped into his bones and never left. Now, he crosses his arms, presses his palms into his armpits and wills the lingering chill to dissipate.

_(With or without reason)_

Paris baptizes him in her sunlight and cigarette smoke, lets him sink into her foundations and burrow under the cobblestone streets, at home in the gutters, where he makes a valiant effort not to spend his exile black-out drunk. There is a comfort in this; in knowing you are in the lowest place, no where else to fall. It’s the solid ground of bedrock that he relies upon to keep him steady.

_(The beds of death)_

Bile rises in his mouth whenever he thinks of what he made Joe and Nicky endure. Seeing them strapped to those tables, next to each other, the instruments laid next to them and the samples stored in the room – he had given life to their worst fears. There’s nothing he can say, he realises, to fix this. It’s broken, and he feels like a child, shattering some fragile thing and sitting helplessly on the floor, what did he do, _fuck, what did he do-_

He wants to grab life by two hands and know that all his mistakes belong to him, not God, not some unknowable force. He wants to figure out how to stop drowning in his misery and get to that shore. He’s so tired of swimming up from the blackness, the current beating down on him, and he’s not sure how much of his hopelessness is his own or and how much of it belongs to Quynh.

_(It will be the same)_

He cannot begin to express the reprieve that comes when he finds her waiting for him in his apartment. It tastes like fresh air and daylight, after so long without it. Like something heavy that has been sitting on his chest for far too long has lifted, and he finds himself gurgling with laughter, tears stinging in his eyes in a way that feels so good he could shout.

_(This is what you were born for)_

Her serene face breaks into a brilliant smile, and Booker scoops her up into his arms and holds her close. She feels exactly like he thought she would; like a finely tuned instrument, like a barely concealed weapon, like a dagger hidden in plain sight. Mostly though, she feels like someone he knows, like family.

“Hello, little brother,” Quynh whispers into his chest, and Booker can only hug her tighter.

_(They avail themselves)_

* * *

**5**

When Booker sees Nile again, after 50 years, she runs into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist in a desperate embrace. He catches her easily, tears springing into his eyes at her affection.

When he looks past her, he sees Joe and Nicky by the door, watching them. They have a weary look about them, and Booker understands – the guilt he has in his heart hasn’t lessened for what he put them through, and 50 years isn’t quite enough time to forgive that.

Quynh emerges from the safehouse, and her eyes are red, brimming with unshed tears, but she smiles when she sees him. Nile extracts herself from Booker long enough for him to scoop Quynh up in his arms.

_(The women give courage/and are fierce)_

He’s both unsurprised and yet totally unprepared for the way Nicky places his hands on his neck and draws him in for a quiet embrace. Joe hugs him too, thumping him soundly on the back just a little too hard, a dead giveaway that he’s missed Booker. They invite him inside.

-

They send Andy off in a burning pyre, surrounded by all the people who loved her. Booker feels like a freight train of grief and anger, running off the rails. He’s angry – at God, at the universe, but mostly at himself.

When the others finally leave to the safehouse, Booker stands alone in the field, trying and failing to keep himself in check. Eventually, he sinks to his knees, with the significance of centuries’ worth of love burning up with the fire, disappearing like smoke into the night sky.

_(They escape through the flames)_

Booker pounds his fists into the sandy ground until the strung skin of his knuckles split open. He’s coming apart, like meat falling off bone, head and heart and hands thumping with the crow inside of him, clawing its way out of his lungs. His breathing is the ragged edge of a blade, a harsh sound in the quiet of the night.

Bones snap against a rock buried beneath the topsoil, and Booker can hear the bite of his teeth as their grooves find each other in a clenched jaw. He doesn’t shout, but he does stop. He stares at his hand, as raw skin soothes over his exposed metacarpus, as his thumb realigns itself together.

_(Great deeds against the dead)_

Booker’s hands aren’t shaking, though the muscles of his wrists feel weak with the trauma, but his shoulders are, chest wracked with heaving sobs. He presses his palms to his eyes, trying to quiet his brain, and his fingers form branches that dig into the roots of his hair.

When someone reaches out a hand to touch his shoulder, Booker recoils from it, curling up inside of himself. He’s whispering a mantra of apologies, a devastating litany of pleads for forgiveness.

When he opens his eyes, Nile is kneeling before him. She takes his hands, untangling them from their grip on Booker’s hair, and brings them to her lips. For years after, Booker will remember that deliverance is the softness of her kiss on his skin.

_(All this and more)_

* * *

**+1**

Booker returns to his family a new man.

Nicky is the one who answers the door. He swings it open and looks Booker up and down discerningly with an awful poker face. It lasts about two seconds before he quirks that infuriating smile of his, and raises one eyebrow in question.

Booker grins and answers, “fifty years sober.”

Nicky curses, but his smile is now in full force as he fishes out his wallet and slaps the money in Booker’s palm.

“Welcome home, Booker.”


End file.
